


faith you need to borrow

by kirkaut



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Post-Canon, Roxy and Eggsy are the best of friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-28
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2018-04-01 17:40:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4028878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirkaut/pseuds/kirkaut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eggsy’s always been something of an adrenaline junkie.</p><p>Somehow, perhaps drowned by the memory of the incomparable high, he inevitably manages to forget about the crash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	faith you need to borrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rojhizzer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rojhizzer/gifts).



> written for the prompt: "I'm not good at this but this has been on my mind lol. After Eggsy saves the world, he is suddenly hit by the realization that when he gets back to HQ, Harry won't be there to congratulate him and tell him how proud he is of Eggsy. So Eggsy starts to wonder if any of it was worth it, because the only person at the moment he is thinking of is Harry. Roxy is there to comfort him through it all. But then all is well after they find out Harry is alive! Like, I really don't know how to word things.. 
> 
> I hope you like it!

  
_Sometimes in our lives we all have pain_  
_We all have sorrow_  
_But if we are wise_  
_We know that there's always tomorrow_  


  
_Lean on me, when you're not strong_  
_And I'll be your friend_  
_I'll help you carry on_  


**_"Lean On Me" - Bill Withers_ **

 

ooo

 

Eggsy’s always been something of an adrenaline junkie.

He gets it from his dad, he supposes—no way of knowing, really, but considering how Lee up and joined a spy agency straight out of his time in the marines, Eggsy thinks it’s a fair shout.

It’s honestly one of the things he’d loved so much about gymnastics, especially when he was able to get on the tramp. There was an incredible rush to be had, floating up against the springy canvas and throwing his body into impossible shapes and twists and rolls, knowing that a single misstep could leave him with a broken bone, or worse. He’d loved the pump of blood in his veins just before he kicked up his legs and sprinted to the vault. The split second of weightlessness, sharpened by his concentration and laden with the satisfaction of a move well-thrown.

It’s one of the reasons he’s not been able to stay out of the peripheral of the police since he was sixteen and chomping at the bit to knock Dean out. He, Ryan, and Jamal were constantly getting into shit they shouldn’t, channelling all of their misguided teenaged anger into petty crimes and pub brawls. He savours the rush, the tremble of his fingers and the pounding of his heart, the uncontrollable lift of his mouth into a manic grin, the warm clench of arousal low on his hips.

Somehow, perhaps drowned by the memory of the incomparable high, he inevitably manages to forget about the crash. 

He feels it now, sharp and bitter and eating at the satisfaction in his gut like acid. The long, cocky strides he’d been taking down the hall from Tilde’s cell falter. He slows his pace, glancing around at the bustle of harassed looking dignitaries, royals, and celebrities, all scrambling around him in an attempt to  find the exit. His eyes dance over their forms, flicking over with quick assessments before moving on. At first he acknowledges the unsettled, anxious prickling on the back of his neck as his body still on high alert; just the residual burn of excitement from his victory—from saving the fucking world—and the fact that he’s just finished buggering a princess.

It’s only once he’s caught himself peering around a corner expectantly for the fifth time that he realizes what he’s doing isn’t just taking stock of his surroundings. He staggers against the rocky wall of the corridor, knees weak and bending away from the rest of his body, when it hits him.

_He’s looking for Harry._

Harry, who’d last looked at him like Eggsy was something rotted and terrible stuck to the sole of his impeccably polished Oxfords. Harry,  who had laid out the single greatest opportunity of his entire fucking life out onto a silver platter, and whom Eggsy had disappointed so terribly by failing to rise to the challenge.

Harry, who was lying dead and cold on the pavement in Kentucky.

A bullet that tore a hole through Harry’s skull and a hole through Eggsy’s heart.

He lapses there, against the jagged stone that digs into his kneecaps and holds him up, until he can recapture the breath that’s suddenly been knocked from his lungs. He worries at his lip, splitting it open anew, and tastes the burst of iron that spreads across his tongue. His breath,  which had been coming quickly from all the running about he’s been doing, sticks and clots in his lungs.

Harry’s dead, he reminds himself with a hysterical noise that’s half giggle, half sob. He’s been chasing a ghost through the halls.

It takes a few agonizing moments to regain a semblance of composure, to push against the wall with hands that feel hopelessly unsteady and force his body into motion.

His steps are terrible, lagging and scuffled things. He feels ungainly and heavy in his grief, lips trembling apart and compressing back together as he strives to make it back to Merlin and the jet without losing it completely.

He manages. Just barely, but he manages.

Merlin greets him with a snarky comment that escapes him, that whistles past his ears and lands flatly somewhere behind him. He feels drawn and weary, and it must be reflected on his face because as soon as he lifts his gaze to Merlin’s, the jovial smirk on the other man’s face flickers and dies.

“Oh, lad,” he murmurs, and after a brief moment of hesitation, draws Eggsy into a hug.

Eggsy allows himself the indulgence of clutching at Merlin’s pilot coat, knotting his fingers in the fabric and using the grip to pull himself close and press his forehead into the jacket’s lapel.

“Rest now, aye?” Merlin murmurs, and pushes him back with an embarrassing tenderness. “Lancelot’s waiting on us. Just rest, Eggsy. It will be alright.”

He nods, feeling meek and fucking rotten to the core, and collapses onto the sofa, heedless of the blood on his knuckles and in his mouth and smeared into his hair. He finds a throw pillow and clutches it tightly to his chest.

Merlin disappears into the cockpit.

Eggsy buries himself into the cushions, and shivers with the fallout.

 

ooo

 

He wakes to the murmur of voices and the careful, gentle glide of fingers through his hair. The scritch of nails on his scalp is familiar and he lifts into it, chasing the sensation. Roxy smells strange—like the sweet and floral lilt of her perfume, but also like hot metal and gunpowder.  _Edge of the atmosphere_ , he reminds himself drowsily, and lets his eyes blink open. “Hey,” he whispers up to her chin, since her face is turned away.

The voices stop, and Roxy’s face tilts towards his own. “If it isn’t the hero of the hour,” she teases, “awake at last.”

Somewhere beneath Eggsy’s snort of derision, he hears the quiet ‘snickt’ of the cockpit door closing, leaving him and Roxy to their privacy. “That’s you, innit?” he asks, shifting around until he’s on his back and his head is pillowed in her lap. “Can’t believe you shot a fucking missile at a satellite. Christ, Rox, how fucking high’d you go?”

“High enough,” she attempts at an airy casualness, but Eggsy hears the strain in her voice, feels the quick shiver that runs through her body. He reaches up and back with one hand, palm splayed open, and waits for her fingers to slot against his own.

Her hand is cold.

“We saved the day,” he muses. His eyes slide shut, resting. “Legend.”

Roxy hums in agreement, a non-committal little noise high in the back of her throat. A beat, then, “Are you alright?”

Tentative. Wary. Afraid, like Eggsy’s going to shatter if she prods at him too hard.

The sigh he heaves hitches on its way out. “It’s so stupid,” he laughs, ugly and forced and wet. “Fuck, it’s so fuckin’ stupid.”

“What is?” she asks on a whisper. Her fingers tighten around his own, and he grasps back like she’s a lifeline.

“It just. It don’t seem right, y'know?” Eggsy licks his lips, finding them suddenly dry and his mouth feeling parched. He clenches his eyes shut more firmly. “It’s shit, is what it is, because Harry's—he's—Harry is—”

“Oh.” The word punches out of her, quiet but laden with understanding. “Oh,  _Eggsy,_  I’m so sorry.”

A sob slams out of him. “It’s selfish, it’s fucking miserable o'me to think it, because it’s not like I could’ve let the world go to hell, but. Harry’s  _dead_ , Rox. And me, I’m running round, doin’ all these stupid tricks because I thought he’d be impressed, but it doesn’t matter, does it?” The sounds that are coming from his body are more sobs than laughter, more misery than humour, but he can’t stem the flow of them. He squeezes his eyes shut until the phosphenes bloom in firework bursts behind the lids, but all he can see is blood spattering the corner of a cracked glasses lens. “It weren’t worth it. None of it, none of this shit, not if it meant he was gonna get killed anyway.”

Roxy doesn’t say a word, a silent and supportive vigil next to and beneath him. He tethers himself to her like an anchor, his only hope to keep from drifting too far into the sea of his own unhappiness. He’ll regret saying these things to her soon enough, will hear them echo about in his memory and heat his ears with shame, but for now it feels like benediction.

He confesses his sins into the clasp of their hands, and Roxy holds him to the earth through it all. Through every ounce of blame he lays upon his own shoulders, through every juddering wave of anger, through every salt-streak a tear leaves behind on his cheeks. Cradles him close through the painful admission of  _I loved him_  that he slurs into existence.

When he’s done, when there aren’t any words left for him to say, she holds him close and allows him a moment or two to grieve in silence. Her lips part, audible in the separation, and she speaks to him with exasperated fondness.

“You really do have a chip on your shoulder,” she chides, jostling their hands and nudging at his cheek. It’s her turn to speak, now, and she does so effusively. She lays out all the flaws of Eggsy’s thinking bare, wrestles away his demons for him while he’s too weak to do more than tremble in her lap. She speaks with frankness, with an intimacy and gentle biting scorn that only the closest of friends can manage.

She pulls him back from the ledge and pulls the last dregs of cold from his body, leaving him wan and exhausted but somehow lighter for it.

She pauses.

“I’m sorry about Harry,” she says at last, and slips the hand out from his hair to lay it gently over the thrum of his heart in his chest. “When I heard—when Merlin told me, I was so worried about you. The two of you were so magnetic, Eggsy, always in each other’s pockets. And when I saw you at HQ, you looked so—you had Arthur’s blood on your hands, and this look in your eyes that was just  _awful._  Like your entire world had fallen apart and you had nothing left to lose.”

She takes a deep, calming breath. He feels the rise and fall of her stomach against his temple, gusting back and forth with the expansion of her lungs.   
  
 “I know it hurts,” she soothes, rubbing circles into his lapel. “But things will get better, Eggsy. And until they do, for what it’s worth, you’ll always have me by your side.” She moves her hand and flicks him in the chin, a sharp little sting. “Sound good?”  
  
 He swats at her half-heartedly, mouth pulling into a weak but genuine smile. “Sounds perfect.”

  
ooo

  
(And Roxy keeps her word, is burrowed tightly into the curve of his side when Merlin throws the cockpit door open, fingers pressed hard to his ear and eyes wide and stunned. She’s there, gripping him back just as tightly as he’s holding onto her when the Scot manages to get out  _Harry—he’s alive!_ to trip off of a tongue heavy with disbelief.  
  
She holds him when he bursts into heaving, messy tears—happy ones, this time, for all that they wrench out of him and leave him feeling bruised and raw.  
  
She’s the one to practically drag him into the hospital room when he spends fifteen minutes pacing around in the corridor, worrying at his fingernails and scuffing his shoes against the tile. Roxy’s perched on one side of Harry’s bed when Eggsy collapses onto the other, curling his body into the tight space to Harry’s right and leaking fat tears into the hospital grade pillow. She grips at Harry’s spare hand, herself, and gives him a watery smile when he thanks her for making Eggsy finally come inside. His other hand is pressed gently between both of Eggsy’s, the young man’s mouth brushing over the skin with fervent and thankful kisses.  
  
She stays by Eggsy’s side until the murmurs of the two men’s conversation makes way for the glide of nose against nose, for the delicate moue of a kiss between two mouths that thought they’d never have the chance.)

**Author's Note:**

> come hang out with me on tumblr at kirkaut :)


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